


of the one art, mistress

by leeklustre



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Cynicism, F/F, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 03:04:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20268967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leeklustre/pseuds/leeklustre
Summary: Rey, captured by their enemies, is determined to hold out against interrogation.Leia has a rather more jaded view of the situation.





	of the one art, mistress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aurae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurae/gifts).

"What makes you think I have anything to tell you?"

There were times when the youth and energy of Leia's colleagues and compatriots made her ache with its fierceness. Even, it seemed, when they were under hostile interrogation. Her dominant reaction was not pride in Rey's courage, or fear for its consequences, but tiredness. In that moment, Rey made her feel old.

It was not her first reaction. She'd suspected something had gone wrong as early as the sleep cycle before last. Then, in a stroke - perhaps - of luck, a sympathiser within the Caravid mercenary fleet had confirmed it. The Caravids had captured Rey, and were attempting to wrest useful information from her: Leia's current base, likely next bases, and the names of worlds that had conditionally agreed to support or harbour the Resistance.

The Caravids had a loose association with the First Order. According to Leia’s intel, they had not carried out any missions for the First Order in approximately four months, and this was because of a pay dispute. She wondered whether the Caravids sought to onsell the information directly to their employers, or keep it in reserve to advance potential future operations. Either way, there would be no urgency to their interrogation.

The core of this message had been passed along in a single burst, and the sender had indicated it was sent soon after Rey's capture. Therefore, the sender must be a Caravid officer in a communications role, or that kind of data burst would be questioned - and it clearly had not been, as many messages had followed. Leia had received scattered updates, and now this: compressed audio data, apparently retrieved from the flagship's records.

Leia had weighed up the rewards and repercussions of listening to it herself, or detailing someone else to that task. She imagined what words one of her captains might use to describe Rey's tone. "Spirited," maybe.

_I would rather hear you broken,_ Rey, Leia thought, with a mix of tenderness, anger, and fatigue. _Give them enough of what they want, and come home._

The infuriating mettle of youth. Rey, clearly, had no such intentions.

The interrogator delivered their questions in an even tone. It wasn't an accent Leia knew, and so she couldn't tell if the evenness hid emotional nuance, or if the speaker were merely bored. Rey was insouciant, indignant, derisive, like an actress chewing through a bad holo script.

Silence.

Not-quite-silence. A movement of air. It could have been a grunt, or perhaps the interrogator commenting in another language.

"That won't help you," Rey said, and there was pain in her voice.

The transmission ended.

There was always the possibility that this Caravid sympathiser was no sympathiser, and the data was bait to draw the Resistance out. If not to save Rey, then to save the Resistance from the consequences of the information she might give up.

The Resistance did not have the resources to take on the Caravids for one prisoner. The Caravids would be disappointed in that. But the Caravids, Leia reflected again, had time. They would not be disappointed in Rey; they would wear her down. 

Rey's pride, principles, and personal feelings would be the greatest casualty here - Leia hoped.

Leia wished she could reach across the galaxy and shake her. As, perhaps, long ago, others had longed to do to her. Too far past now, for her to remember how it had felt to be Rey.

_Give in._

If she were stronger in the Force, she could do a great deal more than that. Reach across the distance, as though it were nothing, and soothe Rey's pains. Hold her, kiss her, rock her.

(Shadow her, oppress her, dig intangible thumbs into her aches, drive this whole rigmarole towards its necessary conclusion.)

She wondered that Rey did not herself reach out. Some drug or device that disrupted Force users? The Resistance was known to court those who were sensitive in the Force. And the Caravids would have found any such means useful when avoiding intimidation by their employers.

Leia coded a terse list of instructions for the unknown Caravid sympathiser, in the event that her technicians could manage two-way communication, and left her makeshift briefing room. As an afterthought, she also left instructions for two of her officers who might be awake in the shift in which she was asleep - if a new message came in, they could summarise it for her.

(Perhaps that pragmatism would shock Rey, if she knew. The next words from Rey might also be the last she spoke. But if that were the case, then Leia could always listen to them again later.)

There were maybe forty steps between the listening station and her bed, and Leia tried to leave the cold considerations of the General behind.

But her bed, too, was cold.

Rey had slept in this bed with her before setting off on the mission that had led to her capture. She had slept there once, because this base was new. At the rate things were going, they would not have it long enough for the dust of their arrival to settle. But there was merit to that too.

It was an indulgence, to let herself wallow in the sheer unreal sentimentality of it: that because Rey had once tangled these sheets, they were colder for her absence. Leia lay down and continued to be sentimental: the bed was not wide, but even so, she edged herself deliberately away from the centre, and with the nearest hand smoothed over the surface she had left bare. Perhaps she should be careful: in such a mood she might dream of Rey, and dreams of Rey were not always self-enclosed.

If Rey came back - and all of Leia's pragmatism said she would - she would fuck Leia as though she needed to prove her own vitality. She would kiss fiercely and moan more fiercely and rut against Leia's thigh and jut her breasts out to be grasped. She would expect Leia, protective and lamenting, to touch Rey as if Rey were suddenly more precious for her capture. And, thought Leia, she would probably indulge Rey in that, for one night, before steering Rey back towards the habits she preferred. In Leia’s lovemaking, she preferred a slow maddening, and orgasms that came as unnannounced as they were inexorable, so that in the grip of them Rey gave no more voluntary reaction than she had in the tape, just before the end.

Leia wondered if Rey, and Rey’s spirit, would survive to understand: Leia did not fear for Rey’s life and health any more now than she had when she had sent her out on errantry. In war, you did not love people without having faced their loss. And Leia had already lost more people than Rey had ever known.

Still. 

_Come home._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta!


End file.
